after_alex

Remember when your high school teacher or college professor once said: “There’s no such thing as a stupid question”…well don’t listen to him. It’s obviously bullshit. In the real world, even around my mentors that I work with, if I ask questions that are not carefully timed, well-thought out, or framed in the right way I will immediately be uncovered as a dumbass.

True, the older guys I work with don’t expect me to know everything, but I have to contstantly stay up to speed with their conversations to stay in the loop. I also don’t have the 30-40 years of experience that these guys have so it’s that much harder to understand what they’re saying when they engage in their accelerated discussions about budgets, counterpart funds, who should bid on what project, and why the guys across the hall are screwed or why we can’t design projects that rely on the Ministry of Finance…

I’m lucky enough to even be exposed to these discussions about high level project strategy but it’s not always easy to understand what the hell is going on. It’s something like popping into a Board meeting of Microsoft and over hearing their discussions. Half the time you won’t even understand what the hell they’re talking about. The other half of the time you’ll catch product names, mentions of other companies, different strategies in sales, development or marketing…but for the most part it’s just a observation exercise for you. By the end of the meeting, if the meeting was important enough, you’ll realize that you’ve witnessed some great power unfolding and great decisions being made. But it’ll be at least a few meetings away before you figure out what really happened…

I just thought this article was extremely appropriate for me. But good thing I’m not home this Thanksgiving…so I won’t have to spend half my time fixing their computer. Funny thing is…no matter how much you fix, they will always blame you for something else that went wrong on the computer. Of course, it’s always their fault, but that won’t stop them from blaming you for all of their computer woes – just cuz you were home for a few days, you must have caused all of their life’s problems right?

This year I’m not around for Thanksgiving. I’m in Afghanistan. I guess that means there’s one good thing about being in Afghanistan for Thanksgiving: I won’t have to fix the folks’ computer. Nevertheless, you can bet that my parents will still be shouting at me that I mucked up their computer – all the way from Afghanistan.

So when I get back I’ll probably have to do everything to their computer just short of formatting it, to once again prove my worth to my parents (especially my dad). The last thing I want to do is reformat, cuz there’s always some junk on the computer that my dad wanted to save but didn’t tell me….and then I’ll be the root of all his evils once again. Oh well….

hehe. Here in Afghanistan, as you can imagine, computer expertise is hard to come by. The older guys I work with always have computer problems, and they’re always asking me to fix things. But for the most part, I keep my mouth shut about what I can REALLY do, and what they need to do to keep their computers virus-free, etc. so that I can avoid being the center of attention when it comes to computer problems…ah, lessons in life. Lessons in life…

here’s the article Geek to Live: How to fix Mom and Dad’s computer

Today is Thanksgiving. As you might have guessed, I’m working as usual today. Thanksgiving means nothing to Afghan people, so I almost forgot that today is indeed the day to pig out and gorge myself with Turkey bits and high-calorie foods.

But instead, Dr Quan and I have been planning our Thanksgiving meal for quite some time now – and it’s ended up being rice-noodle stuffed chickens…with coliflower soup and almond jello for dessert. So it kinda turned out like some mutated Afghan-Vietnamese-American Thanksgiving. Oh well, at least we got some food.

Dr Manny, Dr Quan, and John Jedryk

Myself and Dr Manny, and part of John’s head

We couldn’t make it into the Kabul Compound (US military base) cuz our contacts with the US Gov have left. Bastards. Just kidding. They were real nice people. But I’m glad we got some decent grub. hehe

Dr Quan started reminiscing again about Thanksgiving and how he’s all thankful for all the good things he’s had. He retold some stories about his refugee experience escaping Vietnam and all that, and how he landed in the US 2 days before Thanksgiving. What a life he’s had. His story’s a little bit different though – his first Thanksgiving meal in the US was actually years before…prolly in the 60s when he was studying in Philadelphia as a college student. He recalls that the famous Scott family (the owners of the paper-making empire) invited a buncha the foreign students to their house for thanksgiving, and Dr Quan himself (back then just a lowly college kid) was picked up by their own limo….

Then after college, he returned to Vietnam, got thrown in jail for a few years, and the next few thanksgivings were celebrated as Uncle Ho’s birthday…so while in jail the closest thing he got to Thanksgiving dinner was a couple cubes of sugar for dinner…instead of turkey and stuffing and all that. Rough shit, that’s the life huh? Now he’s out of jail and helping other people in poor countries, so in one way that’s his way of giving back…

(oh ya Shout Out also goes to Victoria, my family, the LBC, and all you other mutha fuckas who get to gorge yourselves at the start of this holiday season. I hope you all clog your arteries and become too embarrassed to show yourselves at the beach. ha! drink a cup of boba, and hurry up and light some incense for my picture at Little Bean…)

So guess what? I’m back at work at the Civil Service Commission, and once again the power does not work. As always, no power means that there is a limited supply of water in the tanks up above. Run out of tank-water and the bathrooms here are gonna be disastrous.

And you know what tops up the situation? There’s NOP NOW (“no power, no water”) at home as well. The meter bringing in electricty from the street is busted, so we’re relying on the truck-size generator outside our house. Last night the generator also busted, so it’s been a cold morning, and it could be a very cold (and very stinky) next couple of days. So, with winter coming right around the corner, our last resort for heating is thick layered clothing and butane heaters. Yes, we’re using them in the house. There’s enough air moving around the house that we won’t kill ourselves with the gas emissions. But we’re forced to only use the heaters when we really need them – when we’re together eating dinner or breakfast or whatever.

So, without power, (and thus internet, running water, etcetera) it feels like we’re living in the 1930s or 1940s in Nowhere America. For entertainment we’ve resorted to listening to the radio – Dr Quan has a 7 band radio that catches AM/FM/shortwave in addition to all the tranmissions coming in from aliens in outer space. Funny thing is that the only programs on the radio are news: BBC, French Radio International, the US military channel….and all the channels have some guy in that 1940s voice talking about war and Congress and hurricanes and things like that. You turn the channel and some Brit’s ranting off about how the Furor is corrupting Germany and he’s going to cause the world great harm. So sitting in the cold-morning, sipping my tea and cornflakes I can’t help but imagine that I’ve been time warped back to the 1940s, even the furniture is convincing enough – old carved wood and glass cabinets with matching chairs and [broken glass-top] table. I think to myself…So this is what it was like eh? And I start to appreciate a life long, but not too long ago, in a place far away…

So…here’s a post that I hand-wrote during one of our blackouts at the office. Computer ran out of batteries, and therefore I couldn’t do my work. Therefore, I resorted to hand-writing blog messages…

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